Step by Step/Issue 15
This is Issue #14 of Step by Step. This is the third issue of Volume Three. 30 Silvers The long, hot storm a-brewing made Wayne get the chills. He shivered, plopping the wet mop on the blood-stained floor. With all the rubbing, the soap didn't do anything to convince the blood to leave the cafeteria's floor. There was so much. It was as if someone had thrown red paint everywhere, like that one Stephen King movie. He had been washing it since he had woken up, around four in the morning. Some of the soldiers, Alexander one of them, had snickered to themselves. Alexander told him that it was blood from the man that Officer Pacino had shot dead. He was sick to his stomach, knowing that he was probably trying to wipe up some dead guy's brain matter. Word had gotten around pretty fast the day after that. Of course, there were probably less than thirty people crammed into Summercreek. Soldiers included. He regretted the decision now. He should have just raised his hands up and let Malcolm or Brock to choose another poor soul. He guessed they had known he would. The thought of cleaning up after a crime scene didn't make sense in his mind. Wouldn't Indianapolis want to know why there finest in blue had ended a man's life so brutally? Cleaning up the blood seemed like the moral thing to do. But whatever, he had about enough of the hard smell of soap meeting with the dried up blood. He wondered where the soldiers had taken the bodies. There were, at most, twenty dead. He had counted before running to find Nolan. Twenty souls dead and no place to hand them a bed. By then the whole building was a cold snowball, literally. Wayne could see people in the main office shaking like they were transforming into icicles. It was a good thing Wayne's bait came right to him. He and Nolan would get along just fine. He needed the guy to lead him to his partner. The cold wasn't the problem really. Mainly it was the packs of dead folk lurching outside. Banging on the windows and doors that led in. The whole front of the school was plain glass. Minus the entrance door. He had memorized the school's layout so much he felt like the architect who birthed the damn thing. The cafeteria was at the right shoulder of the school, right beside a long corridor of emptied hallways. Some of the crazed people had found their way in and took refuge in the classrooms. Wayne snorted with laughter. They were alike. Just looking for a safe place. Except the guards were poking around. Trying to pick every last one of the things before they could cause more damage. As if they hadn't already. Nolan's cellphone had dropped dead not too long after every "living" person settled in the gymnasium. The gymnasium didn't fair too well either. The whole electric grid of Indiana, if that's what it was called, seemed to have dropped dead too. And the grateful patrons of the power grid seemed too drop dead too. Everything in Indiana was going south. Way south. Wayne would know since he had been trekking far and wide. From sea to shining sea across the country. Those were the days with his wife, Claudette. She was a fine woman. Had a real nice way of looking at things. Claudette was the definition of a dead optimist. “Knew I'd find you here” Wayne spun around, leaning on the mop. He saw a sergeant there, Malcolm to be precise. His eyes were raw and red. He was in his soldier uniform, camouflaged but not blending in with bloody floors. “You were the only one with the stomach for it,” Malcolm said. Wayne cracked a smirk. “Not all that bad really, looks like sauce if you think about it. We are in a cafeteria, right?” Malcolm stayed silent, confused at the joke. “Well, food does seem to be precious now.” “What do you mean?” “We're running low on things. General stuff, y'now?. Food and water, all that.” Wayne mopped up and down the floor, realizing the stain wasn't getting out. It started looking blurry and diluted. “Isn't there food in the lunch lines?” Malcolm shook his head. “What about those trucks you and the boys got?”—Wayne looked over Malcolm's shoulder and drifted off—“I'll be damned.” There was a thud behind Malcolm, causing him to turn around in shock. He first saw a young man, Lyle was it? Thrown on the floor. When Malcolm shot his eyes up, he saw Brock standing there, stiff and his jaw clenching. The over wear that Malcolm had last seen Lyle with was gone. Now all there was was a torn undershirt. Lyle groaned, thrashing weakly on the floor. He had a bright, purple bruise on his one of his cheeks. His face was bloody, the red replacing his white as Tic-Tac teeth. Brock breathed in heavy, settling himself with a relaxing one. He said nothing. There were two soldiers, one Malcolm recognized as Carter, the soldier that claimed to have survived a bite wound, beside him. The other was a tall, dirty-faced guard holding something firmly. A box. “Traitor.” Brock sent spittle down at Lyle, trying not to fall on his wobbly leg. He didn't want anyone at the school, especially his soldiers, to know his was weak. Weaker. He would grow accustomed to his destroyed leg, but what would Mary say? His kids? They would call him a monster. A cripple. “You got anything to say for yourself, Jackson?” He said, sensing a crowd drawing from the other veins of the school and the gymnasium. “Yeah.” Lyle coughed, barely trying to talk. “Naughty me.” Brock turned to the crowd of refugees, taking a look at Carter. “Stealing,” he said. “That's what he did.” “Big deal, cry me a river,” said Lyle. “Do you think this is funny?” Carter snapped. His brow rose. “We've only got enough food to last another day, tops.” Brock tipped his hand to the other soldier the one holding the box. It was a fat, cardboard one. “Show them.” he said. The soldier laid down the box, taking his time to open it. Murmuring began through the crowd as he slid off the top. “What's this?” He fished out a package of food, plastic wrapped. “This one's untouched, but wait, there's more.” Carter went to help. He himself took out a packet of protein chips. It had a long cut on its opening side. He flipped it over, letting the remaining chips fall to the ground. “Evidence for you all.” Lyle laid still, surprised by the food. Obviously, it wasn't his. The food inside he had stolen when the guards had handed out rations. Of course, some people had assisted him—namely, Nolan and Wyatt. But, in fact, Wyatt was dead. One less chain to hold Lyle's lock. He remembered that one man, a druggie, that had bailed out Nolan from jail. Connection with Lyle himself. It was no surprise that it happened the day after Big Earl's unfortunate end. Ah, it came to him now. Dennis, was it? Was Nolan's new buddy. He was a cracked nut. Had a screw or two loose. Lyle could even call the slim guy a creep, but once Lyle got to know him, he realized he wasn't. Guessed Dennis was a cool dude, a worthy asset. Where's he now? Gone with the wind, Lyle Jackson thought. Before the shit messed with the fan, Nolan had gotten into some trouble. Not a whole lot. What did they, the cops, call it? Wanted for the murder of Earl the Bitch? Wayne had bailed Dennis out. Lyle wasn't sure how Nolan had gotten out, but he was taken in after his apartment had been run down by loads of the things. Not the dead things swarming outside. The police. Even though they were alike, mindless and emotionless, shit hadn't roughed up the fan at that point yet. “You're a dumb ass,” the soldier said. Lyle cursed him off. He looked at the crowd. They were curious, interested. Most of them were angry faces. He could tell they were hungry, but he could also feel their sympathy. He had been the one to trade food with them for their assistance. “You can't do that.” It was a familiar voice. Joseph's. He walked out of the crowd, shaking his head at Brock. He appeared with his camouflage, a sidearm dangling from his holster. “You're insane!” “I'm sane, believe me,” said Brock. “Okay, can I get up now, detectives?” Lyle adjusted himself on the floor, shutting an eye in pain. “A couple bags of chips never hurt nobody.” Carter scoffed. “We saw 'em last night after curfew, headed for the gym lockers.” He let go of the bag, knocking over the box. About a dozen food packages fell out, crumbling over each other like fallen bricks. “Found all this.” The crowd gasped. An uneasy face left the crowd. It was Lilian, and behind her was Gordon. The man who had said a masked man had shot him the week before. No one had seen any masked man. No siree, no Jason Voorhees looking person here. That didn't stop Brock, the great leader, from upping security. Not like there were any soldiers left to do that. Together, Gordon and Lilian, they were both like twins. Brownish blonde hair that went to their shoulders. Fair-skinned and tall. “You've gone nuts.” “No,” said Brock. He pointed to Lyle, “he has.” “Fresh Prince over here thinks he's in charge,” said Gordon. There must have been a smile on his face, but Lyle couldn't spot it through the blur caused by blood on his face. “But don't worry a little bit, it's just that time of the month.” Brock straightened up. He pushed his hand forward, growling. He looked at Carter. “Stay back, Don.” Carter reached for his hip. His hand came back up with a pistol, burning itself into Gordon's face. “Whoa, take it easy, Eastwood,” said Gordon, raising his hands. He looked surprise by the gun, not expecting Carter to do such a thing as to pull it out. Threaten a soldier. “Put it away, man.” “The funny thing is—“ Brock pursed his lips, glancing at Lyle. “The rations has names on them. Now I haven't gotten to know most of you, but there are names on the rations.” “You having a trading business going on?” Carter's eyes went cloudy with rage. “Behind our backs?” Malcolm started walking to the hallway himself with Wayne. He called up Brock, but the man ignored him. “What the hell d'you think you're doing?” “Getting justice,” said Brock. “This shithead made us all worried. He's a coward, stealing from the people trying to keep him safe. Lyle is a selfish traitor, he only thinks for himself. He used you all, don't you see?” “All right, my back is starting to hurt,” said Lyle. “Gimme a slap on the wrist and I'll be off.” “This isn't right, Brock,” said Amanda, standing at the side of the crowd. The policeman next to her laughed, combing his hair. “Sure it is.” Frank scanned the box, detecting no carbonated products there. His lip curled. Lyle was no use to him now. “He has a partner. Nolan.” Brock smiled. “That's what we thought,” he said. “Were you working alone?” Lyle nodded, no doubt on his face. But his eyes did scan the crowd. He saw that Nolan wasn't there. He's at the back, Lyle thought,'' a kid watching his house get robbed''. He thought of what Brock would do once he found Nolan. Lyle inhaled and prayed, not for himself, but for his friend. Then he did what he should've done, what he could only do, and that was hold his tongue. In situtations like this, when one gun goes off the others are apt to follow. A firing squad, he thought but didn't think much of it. “Bullshit!” Carter shouted, his teeth grinding. There was a chatter going through the crowd. Awe. Amanda screamed. “Carter, calm down!” Gordon took a step forward, barely three feet from Carter. It was enough for him to stick the pistol in Gordon's gut, but that didn't hold him back. “You got a temper on ya, Mr. Anger Management.” "I don't have a short temper, I just have a quick reaction to bullshit." "Whatever you say, princess." Brock observed the crowd, taking in every detail. He tried to see who was missing. But every refugee stuck with him in the school was in the same hallway. Lyle was working with someone. A criminal named Nolan. The rations had been labeled with the traitor's name, telling Nolan who to give which ration to. Even Alexander, the guy with the radio, was there. Of course, with radio at hand. "There is a chance that we will be rescued. No one else needs to die. No one gets hurt no more if I can reroute the signal, okay? I can get help, enough to save everyone that's made it this far. We need to pull through this together." Together, a voice told Brock. “No, I am not waiting. We may have a solution,” said Brock. “It's punishment, but a softer one. It's one of those where the traitor might lose, but everyone else definitely gains something.” “What are you suggesting?” Wayne asked. Brock hummed to himself. “The sentence is a type of community service.” He cocked his head to one of the hallway's windows, which showcased the dark scene of the roadway where there was a rising flood water. It was about knee-deep. “He's going to make up for this. In other words, he's going out there to bring us food from the trucks. Goodies.” “That's suicide!” Joseph exclaimed. “No, you idiot, it's a chance of surviving. Personally, I was going to execute him.” Lyle coughed, grabbing his chest. He looked through the crowd, trying to find Nolan. His last chain that held his lock. He thought he saw a flash of brown hair, but he winced from the pain. “You were close to it, Rocky.” Brock stretched out his smile. “If there's no objections, it's a go.” “Yes there's a problem,” said Malcolm. “If we do this, we'll be risking everyone's life for a crate of food that might not even be there to begin with. If we do do this, then we go all the way. You—frankly, none of us—don't know what's even out there with this storm on us. Shit, all we know is that there's dead people outside waiting for our flesh and bones." "Alright," said Brock. "A show of hands will decide. Objections?" Brock waited. Then he counted the few hands that went against. He saw Amanda and Alexander betray him. He kept his smile up, hiding his bitterness. Joseph's hand crept up. Gordon's did too, much to Carter's surprise. Even some of the refugees raised their hands. "Okay," said Brock. He wavered to Malcolm, directing his hands to the crowd. "Now for." At first there was a silence. Brock was about to speak, call for everyone to vote. But then the uneasy faces in the crowd rose their hands. Nearly every of the soldiers did, some snickering and raising their rifles instead. It was just for show, really, but it made Brock feel the power. "Seven, eight, nine..." Carter counted. "Blah, blah. Seventeen, eighteen. Ta-da, we have a winner!" "You think this is game?" Lyle said, voice hoarse from the unrest. "You're crazy. And the rest of you ain't better." "Shut up," said Brock, curling his lip. His golden eyes drove themselves to Malcolm. "We've got a majority." The corners of his mouth sinisterly grew. "A consensus." "I won't allow it." "Yes. You will." "You've lost it, Brock," said Joseph. He lingered where he was, his right palm turning into a fist. "No," said Brock. "You've lost your sense. You aren't a soldier anymore. Just a plain wuss." Joseph held back his fist. He could see Brock glancing at it, ready for the right blow to the jaw. But it never came. "The only thing I've lost," he said, "is your respect." Carter sighed in Gordon's face, letting his breath sting Gordon's eyes. He went to Lyle, propping a hand out to him. “You're coming with me, fresh meat.” Brock stared at Lyle, showing no emotion. “While you're at it Carter, go round up some guards and officers. There's another criminal in here.” Issues Category:Step by Step Category:Category:Step by Step Issues Category:Issues